R-5: INGRID BAKER’S ALTERNATE ENDING

Pitch: When her dead father is linked to a missing actress, a lonely teenager heads to New York to find the parallel world they’re hiding out in. At least that’s the story she’s telling people.

First 250 Words:
It all happened on the same day: Will Friese appearing, Claire Harlow going missing, and the hard, painful bump on my chin that was likely to erupt into a giant zit by evening. The third thing maybe wasn’t so important, but things happen in threes is all I’m saying.

While I weighed the pros and cons of going to class or blowing it off to put lemon juice on my face, my dad’s voice echoed in my head. “A hatchling, Ingrid. What are you going to do with it?”

A hatchling sounds like something wet and squawking and covered in slime with bits of shell stuck to it, but it’s actually a split in time. At least according to my dad. There are always options. We choose one and live with it, but what about the others, the ones we didn’t choose? They go on without us. So, in this reality, while one Ingrid goes to class, in another, different world, Ingrid skips class and enjoys a relaxing afternoon watching an entire season’s worth of television while drying out her chin. And each Ingrid, each world, never knows of the other’s existence.

Most people thought my dad was crazy. But he’d made a whole career out of trying to prove these other worlds exist. Until he was murdered last year. Vehicular homicide. That’s what it’s called when the murder weapon has four wheels and an engine. But it is murder nonetheless. And for six long months I’d been left alone with just my mom to wonder what he was doing crossing the street in New York when he should have been at home in Toronto.